top of page
Indeed Wave.PNG
2022 Best Podcast Award
Disability Solutions

Oleeo Means Diversity?


When you make a word up it can be defined any way you see fit.

Jeanette Maister, VP of Americas with Oleeo, joins Chad & Cheese for a drive-by interview. She talks brand, rebranding, events, QR codes, diversity, bias, recommending not matching? and much more.

Brought to you by our friends at NEXXT.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:

Disability Solutions is your bridge to the disability community, delivering custom solutions in outreach, recruiting, talent management and compliance

Jim Stroud:

Fifty minutes ago, the world changed. Companies are microchipping their workers. Robots are hiring humans and brain-to-brain communication is a thing. This is all happening now. If you want to know what happens next, listen to the Jim Stroud podcast.

Intro:

Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast!

Jeanette:

I just want you to realize my feet don't touch the ground right now.

Joel:

Aww yeah, should we lower that too?

Jeanette:

We're good.

Joel:

Is the weather different down where you are?

Jeanette:

It's totally different.

Joel:

Totally Different?

Jeanette:

Two degrees cooler.

Chad:

You-

Joel:

How tall are you?

Chad:

Definitely have to be the shortest CEO who's been on the show. So this is a first. This is a first.

Jeanette:

Well, I'm technically not the CEO. I'm just head of all of America. So...

Chad:

All the... So you're just head of the Americans.

Jeanette:

Yeah. Head of the Americas.

Joel:

How tall are you?

Jeanette:

Four nine and three quarters.

Joel:

Holy cow.

Jeanette:

Can't forget the three quarters. [crosstalk 00:01:20].

Joel:

Your heels are at least 10 inches high.

Jeanette:

Yeah so.

Chad:

Let's make this clear If you head up the Americas... If you head up the biggest market in the world, you are the CEO.

Jeanette:

You can, you can go ahead and call our CEO and founder.

Chad:

VP Americas.

Jeanette:

Actually it's wrong, he's actually managing director [crosstalk 00:01:39] although I hear-

Chad:

Oh, managing director.

Jeanette:

Managing director and like other tech companies is a different title. So VP's the better one, but I come from Wall Street and managing director. That's like the top.

Chad:

That's pretty big shit. Yeah. Who are we talking to?

Jeanette:

Oh yeah. Who am I?

Chad:

Hi everyone. This is the Chad and Cheese podcast.

Joel:

Welcome here. Live from HR Tech.

Chad:

Live!

Joel:

I'm your cohost Joel Cheesman-

Chad:

And I'm Chad Sowash.

Joel:

So glad to be here. And who are we interviewing today, Chad?

Chad:

Well, it's Jeanette, right?

Jeanette:

Jeanette.

Chad:

Jeanette Meister.

Jeanette:

Maister, like the month of May.

Chad:

Maister, Maister, damn it.

Jeanette:

Get it right. Not spelled with an "E," "M-A." [crosstalk 00:02:13].

Chad:

See... Yeah. I thought I had the Meister. You might know the Maister.

Jeanette:

There you go!

Chad:

Okay. VP of the Americas managing director and or VP of the Americas for-

Joel:

Oreo.

Chad:

For Oleeo.

Jeanette:

Oleeo.

Joel:

Oleeo, sorry.

Jeanette:

Can't say it without smiling!

Joel:

Oleeo!

Chad:

I can't say it without smiling, because you're smiling at me the entire time.

Jeanette:

Well, you know I'm a smiler.

Joel:

You know what a funny fact about me?

Jeanette:

Okay.

Joel:

My neighborhood is at the cross streets of 96th and Oleo road.

Chad:

It's not spelled that way.

Jeanette:

But how is it spelled?

Joel:

It's spelled O-L-I-O.

Jeanette:

Well, so, that is actually the original word that our name came from.

Chad:

It's not an English word is it?

Jeanette:

You know, if you go back centuries...

Chad:

I'm just saying it's not in the common vernacular-

Jeanette:

It is not. Because you can't come up with a name. So we've rebranded a year and a half ago and you can't come up with a name that's in the English dictionary because you can't get the .com for that. Right? So... You got to tweak it a little bit.

Chad:

Yeah, I guess [crosstalk 00:03:10] spend a shit ton of cash to be able to get that .com.

Joel:

If you're listening out there. Feel free to Google Oleeo.

Jeanette:

Oleeo. O-L double E-O.

Chad:

O-L double E-O.

Joel:

Please tell me you're a .com and not .ai...

Jeanette:

We're a .com.

Joel:

Okay. You're-

Jeanette:

We're a .com.

Joel:

You're ahead of the game now.

Jeanette:

Yes.

Chad:

You come up with your own name-

Jeanette:

Then you can get the .com.

Chad:

So you get the .com. Chadcheese.com. Nobody had the Chad Cheese.

Jeanette:

Amazing.

Chad:

Yes. I know.

Jeanette:

And you didn't have to spell it weird at all?

Chad:

Nope. Barely.

Joel:

We're genius marketers.

Jeanette:

Seriously.

Chad:

So give us-

Jeanette:

And you have the cool shirts but not in women's cuts-

Joel:

Oh, shit, here we go.

Jeanette:

Which we have to do something about that-

Chad:

Just like I said, my wife looks hot in this tee shirt, okay? So, I would say that's a women's cut if she looks great in it. And I love when she wears a tee shirt. So, tell us about Oleeo. You just changed brands not too long ago, right? New brand, new colors. Yeah.

Jeanette:

So, new brand. We used to be WCN, which was not a radio station out of Chicago-

Chad:

It sounds like it, yeah?

Jeanette:

But it does, which is why I'm like, we can't. So we've been around actually almost 25 years. So we're a bit old school, but we're a recruiting enablement platform. We have a sign right behind-

Chad:

She's actually reading the banner by the way.

Jeanette:

I literally am reading the banner.

Joel:

That literally means nothing.

Jeanette:

It means nothing.

Joel:

Recruitment enablement platform.

Jeanette:

Yeah. Well, okay so, let's think about sales enablement, right?

Joel:

Where intelligence meets velocity, which means less to me. It's helped me out. I'm not the smartest cat.

Jeanette:

Are you sure about that?

Joel:

I'm totally sure about that.

Chad:

I can validate.

Joel:

I'm not the sharpest.

Jeanette:

We'll bring this down.

Chad:

Okay.

Jeanette:

So, what's Oleeo? Recruiting enabling platform. We help-

Joel:

What's that mean?

Jeanette:

Full suite platform-

Joel:

One stop shop.

Jeanette:

One stop shop-

Joel:

So you're an ATS?

Jeanette:

Everything from... Yeah.... We're ATS, we said it. Event management, CRM, interview scheduling-

Chad:

Really?

Jeanette:

With a whole overlay. Wait for it. Intelligent [crosstalk 00:05:05] automation with the buzzwords of AI as well.

Chad:

Oh, instead of AI... Okay, I got ya.

Joel:

So you're going to be my career site applicant tracking system-

Jeanette:

We can do the whole thing.

Joel:

Scheduling... Events-

Jeanette:

But our sweet spot of what we really focus on is high volume. So when we say high volume, it might be...

Joel:

Retail...

Jeanette:

Retail. World's largest retailer-

Joel:

Warehouse-

Jeanette:

Might use us for things.

Chad:

So what makes you so good at high volume?

Jeanette:

That was what we were founded on was actually way back in 25 years. Campus recruiting is all about high volume. We're great at hiring that same profile candidates over and over and not five, ten, but hundreds of thousands. So we built from the ground up-

Chad:

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Jeanette:

Something for transaction hundreds of thousands-

Joel:

I feel like in that two minutes. We came up with a better booth than what you have now.

Chad:

That's why we're here.

Jeanette:

We just hired new global head of marketing.

Chad:

Oh yeah?

Joel:

And make sure they listen to this.

Chad:

Let's break these components down though-

Jeanette:

Yes, let's do it-

Chad:

Because talk about a total.

Joel:

You are everything Chad is against, the one stop shop.

Chad:

Oh no, I'm not against it. I just don't believe in it. See, yeah. I believe that you should go after... I believe in choice-

Joel:

I'm not against it. I just don't believe in it.

Chad:

I just believe in choice, but yet-

Jeanette:

Yes, choice is good.

Chad:

If you can modularize it, which it sounds like you can. I'm all for that shit.

Jeanette:

So we're great.

Chad:

Yeah.

Jeanette:

It's perfect.

Chad:

But trying to shoehorn everybody into a specific one. [crosstalk 00:06:30].

Joel:

Jack of all trades and master of nothing.

Jeanette:

Yeah, you can't do that.

Joel:

With your model.

Jeanette:

No, we're actually really focused.

Joel:

You're a master of all.

Jeanette:

We're a master of that high volume, hourly-

Chad:

The high volume, okay-

Jeanette:

Or like the professional at campus recruiting. So, whether you're [crosstalk 00:06:44] hiring all those... So again, [crosstalk 00:06:46] same profile.

Joel:

So, now we're talking, now we're getting down to the nuts and bolts here.

Jeanette:

Now we're getting more into like substance, yeah-

Chad:

So break it down.

Jeanette:

So that's what we're really good at.

Chad:

So, job distribution. Do you have a programmatic play here?

Jeanette:

We do. We do it through partners. We do have the programmatic play. That's new part. Integrating with that piece.

Chad:

Okay.

Jeanette:

Yeah. I mean, you have to now.

Joel:

Talk about the events management. Are people still doing events? Is that still a thing?

Jeanette:

Yes.

Joel:

So what do you guys do for a company, is it job fairs or...

Jeanette:

Yes. So, well, right now today, Grace Hopper, the celebration is happening in Orlando, which is a huge women tech event career fair. Huge. So, anyways... So yes, people are doing... Especially diversity... Diversity, career fairs are huge. This month there's tons of that going on. We were just at the national black MBA diversity career fair... Let's see, was that last week? So-

Joel:

So you're telling about your tour. I want to know what you guys actually do to help companies in an event.

Jeanette:

You go to one of these big career fairs, or if you're hosting one of your own, you have hundreds upon thousands of candidates... Just like here on the X ball here... Well there's not hundreds of thousands of buyers, but if there were, they would be lining up with their resumes. Every candidate gets to go and talk to someone and they have the paper and it's like, "Okay, well how do you as a recruiter..." Or you have your hiring managers or whoever there... How do they deal with that massive volume? How do you get rid of that paper and then get them in, in a systematic way into your technology? So, that's what we do. We help get everyone, use QR code, go in tech, it's all that.

Joel:

Oh man, did you just say QR code?

Jeanette:

I did. We actually have one. We do.

Chad:

That works at a job fair.

Joel:

You lost me.

Jeanette:

I lost it.

Chad:

That works at a job fair.

Jeanette:

It does-

Joel:

Does it?

Chad:

Yeah.

Jeanette:

And you know what's good about that?

Joel:

How many have to download an app-

Jeanette:

No, you don't-

Joel:

To scan your QR codes?

Jeanette:

So, okay, you pull out your... Do you have an iPhone?

Joel:

I do.

Jeanette:

Okay, so your... If you go to take a picture, you just open up your photo picture and you can do it over and it pops it open automatically.